We would like to invite you for an online info/feedback meeting. It is about a special topic in which we want to position the CaptainCasa Framework a little stronger: the design of a workplace that has access to dialogs from various services. Let’s call it a “cross-service workplace”.

Scenarios are for example:
1. Merging of non-CaptainCasa dialogs with CaptainCasa dialogs
2. Merging of CaptainCasa dialogs from various CaptainCasa applications
3. General mixing of UIs of different services

Or something more abstract: the merging of micro-frontends (== dialogs of a micro-service) into a multi-layered user workstation. Lovely CaptainCasa has not only thought about this, but also hacked something – and that’s exactly what I want to show you – and subject it to your feedback.

The meeting takes place at Thursday, Oct 28th, at 15:00h (German time zone). Expected duration: 45 minutes. Please check all the details, including the Zoom-link >HERE<.

The move from Java EE to Jakarta EE means some updating of package names. Example: what was “javax.servlet.*” in Java EE now is “jakarta.servlet.*” in Jakarta EE. – Maybe you already have experienced this when installing existing applications with Tomcat 10 – having received corresponding ClassNotFound-exceptions…

CaptainCasa as framework now comes in two variants:

• The Java EE variant (“default” variant)
• The Jakarta EE variant

You find corresponding downloads both on our download page and in our Maven repository.

Jakarta EE is still quite young. Nearly all Java server projects are based on Java EE – and moving an application from Java EE to Jakarta EE means quite high effort: you not only have to do some renaming within your own classes, but also need to update all your dependencies which internally reference corresponding “javax.*” classes. – Many projects are using Spring, which uses Java EE, and which is not available for Jakarta EE currently.

For all existing users of CaptainCasa:

• Is there anything to do on your side? – No! Just continue to use the  “Java EE” variant of CaptainCasa.
• Should you plan to move to Jakarta EE? – There is no requirement currently from a CaptainCasa framework perspective. The Java EE and the Jakarta EE variants are the same. Actually the Jakarta EE variant is automatically built from the Java EE variant.
• Is the move to Jakarta EE simple? – No. It’s definitely not a “by the way”-issue. Updating your code to use the new package names – this is simple. But then comes the long list of libraries that you depend on and which also need to be updated…

For new users of CaptainCasa:

• Should you start with Jakarta EE instead of Java EE? – We can only say: from a CaptainCasa perspective you can choose either the one or the other. So your decision is independent from the CaptainCasa framework. – If you plan to use Spring: no chance, currently, to go with Jakarta EE, so stay with Java EE.

We updated the Component Reference – which not contains both the API documentation and the examples from the demo workplace.

The reference can be accessed from the demo workplace and from the Layout Editor.

Half a year ago in December 2020 we organized our first online community meeting. The feedback was very good so that we now continue with two additional info and education sessions in June.

The sessions are scheduled at

• Thursday, June 17th, 15:00h – 16:00h
• Thursday, June 24th, 15:00h – 16:00h

Please check and save the dates. Detailed information including the Zoom link for participation are available >HERE<.

We are looking forward to meeting you!

…and: of course the feedback also included that many of you are looking forward to the next “real” community meeting! 😉 Well, that’s the same on our side – but we still have to wait for some more clarification about the Covid-situation.

Popups can be opened as “lightweight side popups”:

The position at the side of the browser screen is kept also during resizing the browser. The content and size of the popups is freely define-able. – The popups are typically used for overlaying important functions and information on top of the current content.

Fields provide the possibility to type in special characters that are not available by using the physical keyboard.

The dialog is opened on “alt-k” (or any other hot-key that you configure) and shows variants for the current character. The selection is either done by mouse click or by typing in the number below the key. The information, which special cahracters are available is configure-able – CaptainCasa comes with some default configuration.

This function is one which is typically mandatory in state offices, in which e.g. the name of persons must be correctly spelled in a fast, efficient way.

Take a look onto the lightweight Pivot component, that was functionally enriched with the last update.

The usage is very simple: you pass the raw data (some key-value-tupels), define which keys to arrange on the left and which keys to arrange on the top – that’s it!

In addition you now can interact with the component in a fine-granular way and…

• update the rendering (colors, formats, widths, …)
• receive events from user selections so that you know what’s going on inside

The component is part of the add-on package which is available for free – including all source code.

A new add-on is available: the “Cluster and Version Manager”.

The add-on addresses two functional areas:

• Load distribution – How to distribute load in a cluster of multiple CaptainCasa runtime installations
• Version management – How to set up scenarios in which different versions of one application run in parallel and how to seamlessly migrate users from the one to the next version

The Cluster and Version Manager is an add-on. Which means: you receive both the runtime version (.war file) and the code (GIT repository) and you are allowed to do anything with it! There is no cost or whatever involved for using it.

The Cluster Manager is not a replacement of other frameworks in the area of cluster management (Docker, Kubernetes, Spring Boot, …) – but works in harmony with these frameworks!

Please check the documentation >HERE<.
 

During application processing by default some animated waiting-image is shown on top of the current dialog:

Now it is extremely simple to notify the user in addition about the progress of the server side processing and to pass some progress level and text to the client:

There is no necessity anymore to decouple the application processing into some own thread in order to “free up” the UI-request-thread. You just need to call a new Java-API:

...
BlockerInfo.sendProgressToClient(<text>,<percentageNumber>);
...

Internally the progress information is passed through a web socket connection that is automatically established between the client and the server.

Dear community,

we will not allow this year to pass by without having met as community! Too many things have happened inside our framework that require to be communicated – and too many things have happened on your side to be communicated back to us.

So we decided to close this year with an online version of the community meeting. The meeting is split up into 3 sessions, each one lasting 1 hour. The sessions start at:

• Thursday, Dec 3rd, 15:00h (German time)
• Thursday, Dec 10th, 15:00h
• Thursday, Dec 17th, 15:00h

Please check and save the dates. All logistics details are available in the forum: please click >HERE<.

Meeting you “online” will not be the same experience as our normal, “real” meeting! (And there is no evening event the day before…) But: let’s give a try! We are looking forward to meeting you!

Björn + Team